


Leap (Don't Look)

by StrictlyNoFrills



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Canon - Book & Movie Combination, F/M, Fem!Bilbo/Fili is endgame, Female Bilbo Baggins, Romantic Comedy, The Leap Year AU Nobody Asked for but Got Anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 12:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21392098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrictlyNoFrills/pseuds/StrictlyNoFrills
Summary: It was an old Took tradition. If any Took lass was in love and her lad had not proposed in the timely manner she might wish, then she would set out on a grand Adventure and return with the fruits of her journey to lay them at her lad’s feet and propose.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Fíli, Fem!Bilbo/Fili, fem!Bilbo/OMC
Comments: 38
Kudos: 436





	Leap (Don't Look)

**Author's Note:**

> I own the rights to neither _Leap Year_, the movie that sparked the idea for this crazy AU, nor _The Hobbit_, which belongs to J. R. R. Tolkien and his descendants, nor the _Hobbit_ film franchise.
> 
> I do own one hobbit in this fic. He's mine.
> 
> As always, Julia Sawalha is my Lady Bilbo.
> 
> If you're into that sort of thing, in the end notes is the soundtrack, with section titles to give a bit of a reference for which part of the story the songs are for.

“Well, lass, I’m headed off to Bree to attend to some business. I should be back in a fortnight.”

Bilbo’s heart gave a wild leap, but she schooled her features to keep her excitement from showing. There were only a handful of reasons a respectable hobbit such as Dougal would visit the town of Bree, and he could say all he liked about having “business” to attend to. She knew better. As the middle son of a family of twelve, Dougal was barely involved in the family business, at least as far as the management side of things went. He certainly did his fair share of the work on the farm. He was dependable in that way.

“Have a safe trip, dear, and I wish you luck in your endeavors. I shall miss you while you are away.”

Dougal frowned as he always did when Bilbo expressed any sort of disquiet at their parting, and she knew it must be because he could not stand to be the cause of her sadness. His face smoothed out and he told her, “I shall not be gone for long, Belladonna. Do not trouble yourself over the matter.”

Dougal was the only one to call her by her given name, and every time he said it, she felt a strange twinge. She knew it must be fondness for the special name reserved for her beloved’s use.

“Yes, of course, dear. You are right, as ever.”

He took her hand and laid his usual chaste kiss upon the back, and then he stepped out of the gate and departed. Bilbo took a few moments after he disappeared from view to exult. Finally! After ten years of careful behavior and nurturing of the love between them, finally, Dougal was going to propose! She let out a squeal and gave a happy wriggle, and then she calmed herself and went to collect the dishes from their luncheon out of the garden where they always shared their meals together to avoid the appearance of impropriety. It made carrying on their courtship difficult during late fall and winter, but they still had the visits she could pay to the Underhill family’s main smial to tide them over during the long, cold months.

After tidying everything away, she went to visit her good friend Asphodel Brandybuck someday to be Burrows. She and Rufus Burrows had been courting since Asphodel turned twenty-eight, and they would marry shortly after her coming of age.

The walk to Brandy Hall took long enough that Bilbo was only just in time for tea. The hall bustled with hobbits young and old coming in for the late afternoon meal, but she spotted Asphodel easily enough. She waved and then headed back out of the large and winding smial, and headed toward a creek not too far away.

There, Asphodel joined her a short time later, with a basket full to overflowing with biscuits and small sandwiches and two carafes of raspberry leaf tea.

“Alright,” Asphodel started, her voice lowered conspiratorially, as they finished laying out their spoils. “What’s this all about? Not that I am not as pleased as punch to see you, but normally it is I who call upon you unannounced, not the other way around.”

“That is because Rory would take it as an opportunity to regale everyone with the tales of our misspent youth, as you well know.”

Asphodel tsked. “Hardly misspent. You simply livened the old Shire up a bit.”

“Yes, well, there’s plenty who would argue that the Shire was better off without our livening.”

Asphodel waved the hand holding a honey butter sandwich dismissively. “Fusspots and busybodies.”

“It is all well and good for you to dismiss them as such, darling. Your heart belongs to one who sees the joy in our more adventurous spirits. Mine does not.” At the slightest mention of her intended, her heart gave a particularly hard jolt. “And to that point, I must say that all of my studied respectability these long years has finally been rewarded.” She beamed beatifically at her dearest friend.

Asphodel leaned forward, gratifyingly drawn in. “No! Bilbo Baggins, you show me your ring finger right this instant!”

Bilbo held up her hands. “I have not a ring to show you – yet. You see, Del, my Dougal has set out for Bree. There can only be one reason for him to set out for Bree to attend to ‘business’ without his older brothers. Dougal Underhill is on his way to buy a ring!” She let out a delirious giggle, feeling flush with happiness.

“Oh, how wonderful, Bilbo,” Asphodel said warmly, though Bilbo saw what looked strangely like concern in her friend’s dark brown eyes. “We shall have to celebrate the moment he returns and asks for your hand.”

“Perhaps not the very moment. I am sure we will want to enjoy it for a little while, Dougal and I. But as soon as he returns home to the Underhill smial, I will come and share the wonderful news with you.”

“I am all anticipation until you do, dear one,” Asphodel declared, taking one of Bilbo’s hands in her own and squeezing gently.

* * *

Bilbo stared at Dougal blankly, trying to piece together the words he had lately spoken. His older brothers had taken ill, and as such, had been unable to carry out the usual cotton and wool deliveries to Bree. Dougal had gone in their place.

“So… when you said you had to attend to business matters… you were speaking of cotton and wool. Your family’s cotton and wool.”

“Well, yes, Belladonna. Whatever else could I have been speaking of?”

Bilbo heard a ringing in her ears, and was grateful to already be sitting down. She had truly thought… but no matter. She had waited this long. She could continue to wait until Dougal was ready. Couldn’t she?

She mustered a wan smile for her beau and held up the tea pot. “More tea?”

“Yes, please,” he replied, still leveling her with an odd look.

Bilbo poured with slightly shaking hands and told herself it was because the breeze today was a good bit stronger than she had expected.

The next morning, Asphodel sought her out, and though she did an admirable job of feigning surprise at Bilbo’s continued lack of a ring, Bilbo could tell that her friend had already known what to expect. Why else would she have come calling, rather than wait for Bilbo to seek her out as they had agreed?

“Bilbo, dear one, are you so certain Dougal is the one?” she asked, her voice and arms around her consoling.

She sniffled and snuffled and finally choked out, “He’s _respectable._” As the years following her coming of age began to fly faster and faster, Bilbo had cast her eyes about for any hobbit who was not a close cousin and yet might suit her Tookish ways. When no such soul could be found, Bilbo threw away the fancies of her youth and determined to be entirely respectable, and to seek someone in kind. She eventually landed upon Dougal one morning at market, when she was buying several spools of cotton to weave a receiving blanket for one of her many cousins who was expecting her first babe. The Dougal of ten years ago had cut a fine figure, with his surprisingly light blond curls, bright blue eyes, strong arms, and hobbity paunch. He was kind and respectful to a fault, and he had a smile that had made her younger self weak in the knees. She had set her cap at him that day and not looked back.

“Not from where I’m sitting,” Asphodel muttered rather darkly over Bilbo’s shoulder.

Bilbo pulled back to ask what her friend meant, but before she could, a deep, scratchy voice called out, “Good morning!”

With a humiliated squeak at being caught in such a state, Bilbo pulled away from her friend and yanked out a handkerchief, hurriedly wiping her eyes, cheeks, and chin free of tears – and just a little bit of snot, if she were being entirely honest.

“I would reply in kind, good sir, but as you can see, mine is rather more fraught than to warrant such a descriptor as ‘good’.”

“Yes, I can,” the voice agreed musingly, and at last, Bilbo looked up to match the voice with a face. She found that she had to keep looking up, and up, and up until she met two bright blue eyes under a very distinctive, tall, pointed hat.

“Oh,” Bilbo gasped. “Hello. Forgive me, sir. You seem familiar, but I am not sure why.”

“I knew you when you were a child, Bilbo. Your mother was a dear friend of mine.”

A friend of her mother’s, who had known Bilbo when she was a faunt, who wore an odd, pointy hat. Her reddened eyes grew wide. “Gandalf! Whatever brings you here? I’ve not seen you in an age.”

Asphodel eyed Gandalf with an appraising look. “This is the wizard?” she asked, sounding rather unimpressed.

Bilbo elbowed her discretely. Her mother’s friend was known to have a bit of a terrifying temper if sufficiently provoked.

“I am one of the five wizards who dwell in Arda, yes. And who might you be? You have the look of the Tooks about you.”

“I am Asphodel Brandybuck. My mother is a Took. And you were not expected.”

Gandalf raised his bushy eyebrows, surprised by either Del’s boldness or her tartness, Bilbo could not say. “A wizard rarely is.”

“Tell me, Gandalf,” Bilbo broke in. “What can I do for you? Would you care to join us for second breakfast?”

Gandalf looked both amused and pleased. “I would, indeed. Thank you, my dear.” And that was how, as Bilbo bustled about the kitchen and Asphodel forbiddingly nursed a cup of tea, Gandalf told her about an Adventure.

And Bilbo had the beginnings of an Idea.

It was an old Took tradition. If any Took lass was in love and her lad had not proposed in the timely manner she might wish, then she would set out on a grand Adventure and return with the fruits of her journey to lay them at her lad’s feet and propose.

Bilbo had tried to be patient and respectable for ten years. She realized now that she was weary of patience. Perhaps it was time to take her fate into her own hands.

“Dear one?” Asphodel asked, sounding cautious, perhaps alerted by the slowly growing smile on her friend’s previously downtrodden face.

“I’ll do it,” she announced. “I’ll be the burglar for this Oakenshield’s Company. And when I return, I shall propose to Dougal.”

After Gandalf departed, his stomach much fuller than when he arrived, Asphodel did her best to talk her out of it. Bilbo had not gone any farther than the borders of the Shire since she turned forty. She was out of practice. She was not as young as she used to be. There was a DRAGON involved! She could very well DIE for a hobbit who had courted her for ten years with nary a ring in sight.

Though she would miss Dougal and Asphodel and several of her other cousins, aunts, and uncles dearly while she was gone, and she was a bit apprehensive about the small matter of the dragon, Bilbo would not be dissuaded. This was the perfect plan.

* * *

Bilbo stared, bewildered, as a young dwarf – there was no other word for it – _strutted_ in through her front door, along with another dwarf she could only assume was his brother, so similar were their names and so synchronized was their timing. Who was this golden-haired scamp that he moved with such easy self-assurance in a strange hobbit lass’s smial?

She shook her stupor off in time to gingerly receive his weapons and find a place safe enough to store them. Freshly sharpened knives thrust unceremoniously into her arms, indeed! She huffed at the audacity and then led Fili and Kili into the dining room where Dwalin and Balin already sat enjoying the rather large feast Bilbo had spent the day preparing.

“Mister Dwalin,” Kili greeted the burlier of the sons of Fundin warmly as he and Fili got themselves situated. There were plates and cutlery set out already, for the two newcomers and all the rest, once they arrived, at the table Bilbo had bribed young Hamfast Gamgee and all of his brothers to move into the dining room from where it typically stayed in storage. It had taken two of her strawberry rhubarb crumbles, but it was well worth it to have everything ready and waiting for when the dwarves arrived.

Another knock sounded at the front door, and Bilbo set out to greet the latest addition to their party. Upon opening the door, her eyes flew open wide, and she leapt out of the way as an entire gaggle of dwarves collapsed in a heap upon her entryway floor.

“Is everyone alright?” she asked, her voice rather high and thin from her near-miss.

“Oh, aye,” one of the dwarves replied readily enough. “It’ll take more than a little tumble to put a dwarf out of commission.” There was a glint in his eye as he grinned cheekily up at her from underneath a hat she dared say was almost as singular as Gandalf’s, and Bilbo had the distinct feeling he was fully aware of the double entendre in his words, and hoping to get a rise out of her for it.

She chose to disappoint him, instead cocking a sardonic eyebrow in the direction of Gandalf, who stood a little further back, entirely unaffected by the rather spectacular fall his companions had just taken. He grinned at her merrily, and she snorted. “Hello again,” she said before turning to help the dwarves heave themselves up from the floor, insomuch as a hobbit of middling height could help dwarves with such a task. She introduced herself as she went around to each dwarf, learning their names in turn.

Upon seeing that all were well and on their feet, she directed them to join their friends in the dining room and help themselves to the many dishes dragging her table down in the center. She waited for a time to see if the last of their number would arrive, taking the opportunity to refill glasses and chat with various dwarves – Bombur, especially, who had glowing things to say about her cooking and wished to compare notes. However, after a quarter of an hour passed and the final dwarf still did not manifest at her front door, she seated herself next to Ori, who smiled at her shyly, and she served herself up a plate of garlic and rosemary chicken, roasted spring vegetables, mashed potatoes mixed with chives, bacon, and cheese, and a clover roll. She took a long sip of her wine, grateful for the chance to rest her feet after being on them for so long today, making everything ready. She had even asked Dougal for a raincheck on their afternoon tea – a very, very belated raincheck, as she explained she was going on a business trip of her own – in order to be sure she had enough time to gather her traveling supplies, purchase groceries for this evening, and settle the matter of who would see to her responsibilities as owner of Bag End and landlady to quite a considerable portion of Hobbiton. Asphodel would be staying in Bag End, and her uncle Bingo would see to the duties towards her tenants. It was quite a relief to know that while she was gone, her home would be safely out of the clutches of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.

When her wine cellar was considerably barer, and the table no longer groaned under the weight of laden dishes, Bilbo smiled at all of the dwarves, who currently sat nursing newly rounded bellies, and she stood to retrieve dessert.

To the last dwarf, they groaned at the thought of eating another bite, but one sniff of her bourbon pecan pies, topped liberally with cold cream, and they rallied themselves admirably. Truly, they were a credit to their people’s valiant heritage. They talked and joked and traded stories and finally, when the three large pies had been whittled down to a single, solitary slice to await their latecomer, Dwalin looked her right in the eye and asked, “So, Miss Baggins. What compels you to join us on a quest such as ours?”

Around the room, all conversation ceased, as every dwarf turned to study her intently.

“Well, first of all, it does not sit well with me that an entire people should have been uprooted from their home by anything, let alone a dragon, and I would see that set right. And second, I have a quest of my own. You see, I seek to win the hand of the hobbit I have been courting for some time, now. There is an old tradition in my mother’s side of my family that if a lass goes on an adventure and then returns to lay the fruits of her journey at her beau’s feet, she may propose.”

“So, you seek to propose to a beau,” the blond-headed swaggerer concluded, frowning at her. “What has he done, that he should warrant the risk to your life and limb for the sake of the chance that you will be wed? I noticed, of course, that you mentioned naught that would suggest he is bound to accept your suit.”

Bilbo flushed, feeling flustered at this argument in a way she had not when Asphodel strove so the day before to talk her out of following this path.

“He’s – he – he is _respectable!”_ she floundered, suddenly graceless. Normally she had one of the sharpest, quickest tongues of anyone she knew. What was it about this particular dwarf that robbed her completely of her composure?

“Is he,” Fili asked, quirking a thick eyebrow. “Why?”

“W-well, I-“ The others began to bang the forks and knives upon the table, urging her to tell them of her love, and finally she gathered herself enough to tell them to stop that or else they would blunt her father’s silver.

“Do you hear that, lads?” Bofur asked in a tone that Bilbo found she was not fond of at all. “The bonnie wee lass says we’ll blunt the knives.”

What followed was a musical number the likes of which Bilbo had never seen, and possibly would have enjoyed, had it not involved her mother and father’s delicate things. Fili, the lout, had her mother’s Westfarthing crockery rolling about on his broad shoulders and back and then flying through the air, all the while with such a look of cheek on his face, which she might have considered quite comely if not for the personality behind it.

When the blasted routine finally crescendoed and came to an end, Bilbo gazed upon her neatly stacked and sparkling clean dishes in breathless disbelief. She turned her gaze upon the self-satisfied guests arranged about her kitchen, hallway, and dining room and shook her head. With a roll of her eyes and a relieved, if exasperated, smile, Bilbo bade them thanks for the help with tidying up but asked that they skip the theatrics after breakfast tomorrow morning. It was after they all agreed, looking entirely unrepentant, that the final knock of the evening came at last at the door.

Bilbo sent the dwarves to make themselves comfortable in the parlor and went to welcome Thorin, giving him a curtsy along with her name. “There’s a plate kept warm for you in the oven. I’ll fetch it for you if you’ll follow me,” she told him before he could say anything unfortunate. She had seen that sort of assessing gaze before, and she was quite unwilling to hear his conclusions until her own actions forced him to draw new ones. No need to sour their relationship before it even began.

She shooed the curious dwarves who seemed ready to pester their leader with questions and to keep him from enjoying her hospitality as they had, and told Thorin, “Come and join us in the parlor after you’ve had your fill, Master Oakenshield.” Then she left him to dine in peace and took out a tea tray and a few more bottles of wine into the parlor to keep the other dwarves occupied.

“You keep a fine home and set an even finer table, if you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Baggins,” Dori of the mithril hair told her graciously.

For that, Bilbo topped off his teacup. “My thanks, Master Dori, for the compliment and for sharing the evening with me.” She glanced around her home wistfully. “This smial was meant to be home to a veritable army of young hobbit lads and lasses, and yet my parents were blessed only with me. Now that they are gone, it is quite empty.” She smiled at all of the dwarves and at Gandalf. “It does my heart good to see Bag End full tonight, as it ought to be always.” She waved her hand and said, “But enough about me. Tell me more of your textile business, Master Dori.”

So they passed the next little while, until Thorin joined them and thanked her for the meal. He seemed to work himself up to say something after that, but then it died on his lips. Bilbo understood. More than one man had been rendered dumb by her bourbon pecan pie. It was the chief reason she had chosen to bake that particular dessert on this occasion. Who knew when the strange powers of her pie would be needed amongst thirteen dwarves, a wizard, and a hobbit lass?

Instead, Thorin inclined his head when she offered him another glass of wine and then he took a seat. The other dwarves descended upon him at once, peppering him with questions about his meeting with the dignitaries from the seven dwarven holdings, only to be disappointed when Thorin declared that they would receive no aid from those quarters.

Bilbo felt her heart sink as well in the face of their dashed hopes, and at the certainty that she was all these dwarves had in the way of hope that they might be successful in their quest.

Well, she would not fail them. She could not, for their sakes as well as her own. Her future happiness depended upon her ability to find and retrieve that Arkenstone, and by Yavanna, she would see it done.

“Give me the contract,” she told Balin firmly. She found a nearby inkwell and quill – both of which she kept in ready supply in discrete places about the smial, as she never knew when inspiration for one of her songs or stories might strike – and signed her name without hesitation or ceremony. She handed the contract to Balin and then announced, “If any of you would care for a smoke, you are welcome to join me outside. The rest of you, please feel free to continue enjoying the tea and wine.”

She made her way out of Bag End and realized, much to her dismay, that the only one to take her up on her invitation for a smoke was His Chief Cockiness, the Crown Prince in Exile. She set about loading and lighting her Old Toby and took a few gratifying puffs before asking, with the intent to needle him as his mere presence needled her, “It’s not so different, is it? What you lot are doing? You are setting out to win back a mountain for a people who have offered no aid.”

Fili sent her a sideways glance, his eyebrows raised sarcastically. “At least we have a duty to see to the comfort and prosperity of our people. Tell me, Miss Baggins, what duty do you have to your beau?”

In her ire, Bilbo sucked up too much smoke and she choked, coughing and sputtering as her cheeks burned scarlet. He dutifully pounded her on the back and watched as she got herself back under control, his gaze only slightly mocking. When she could breathe again, she straightened up and wiped at her streaming eyes, before putting out her pipe.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she rasped, her nose in the air. “I find I do not fancy a smoke after all.” With that, she turned and flounced back to her smial with what dignity she could still muster after such humiliation.

When she returned to the company within her smial, which was far preferable to the company currently to be found without, Bombur took it upon himself to catch her up on what she had missed in her brief absence.

She studied the map and key Gandalf had laid out on her coffee table and feasted her eyes upon the Lonely Mountain. Therein lay her destiny, for good or ill. As she continued to stare at the place where she would either make or destroy the Company of Thorin Oakenshield, Fili returned, and the dwarves began to hum and sing a tune which was far more mournful and arresting than the one they had sung earlier as they tossed her things about. The longing for their home was clear, and it pierced her heart.

For once, when she looked up into Fili’s eyes, she saw no cockiness, no mischief, and no mockery. She saw only yearning and a desperate determination. She nodded at him, a silent promise that she was with him and the others until the end.

He inclined his head towards her in kind, and Bilbo felt something warm and deep rise within her. For some strange reason, she felt that for approval from this dwarf, she could not only sneak into a dragon-infested mountain, she could _move_ it.

* * *

Things had clearly been proceeding too well. Though she would never be fond of riding a pony, and though it took a while to become accustomed to sleeping out in the open again as she had when she was a faunt, and though she could have lived without the rain turning her into a sodden mess, she had several good friends among the Company, she was adapting rather admirably to the hard pace and lack of four of her usual meals, if she did say so herself, and until this moment, nothing untoward had occurred.

Yet here she now stood, watching as a troll made off with Myrtle and Minty, two of their ponies. “Oh, dear. What are we going to do?”

Fili raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, trolls cannot travel during the day, so they must have a troll cave nearby. If you can manage to scout out their camp and find out how to free the ponies and distract them until the sun rises, the spoils will be yours. Surely that will be enough to lay at your beau’s feet?”

He was mocking her again. The shear nerve of the scoundrel set her blood boiling, and she slunk off into the direction the troll had gone without another word, completely ignoring Fili’s frantic whisper of, “Wait! Bilbo! Come back here, now! I didn’t actually mean for you to go into a troll camp on your own!”

“What should we do?” her keen ears picked up Kili whispering frantically. “Do we go after her?”

“Go get Uncle and the others. I’ll go after her.”

Bilbo snuck into the troll camp, sucking in a silent breath. There were three of them. Of course there were three of them. And they were _massive_. She resolved not to focus upon how easily they could crush her with a hand, a foot, simply sitting on her… and went to free the ponies.

She had almost hewn through the rope tying them to the post when one of them sneezed, and the force of it caused him to lean forward, clutching his nose. When he opened his eyes, his head was low enough to the ground that she was directly in his line of sight. She froze, a bizarre hope that if she was still enough, he might not actually see her keeping her rooted to the ground, and then she was seized rather unceremoniously.

“Let her go,” Fili shouted, sending a knife straight into the eye of the troll holding her. He yowled and dropped Bilbo, and she picked herself up and raced toward Fili, only to be caught and _squeezed_ by another troll. Fili sent a knife into the eye of this troll as well, but this time, the last troll caught her as she fell.

It was to the unfortunate sight of Bilbo being shaken by an irate troll that the rest of the Company arrived. Kili was able to shoot out the remaining eyes of the two Fili had shot at, even with all of their flailing about, and then it was easy enough for the others to finish the blinded trolls off, but he could not shoot the third without possibly harming Bilbo, as the troll was still shaking her violently about. Bilbo fought desperately to keep her dinner down and remain conscious when finally the shaking stopped. She plummeted towards the ground for the third time that night, and found herself in the arms of Balin, who studied her carefully.

“Are you alright, lass?”

She shook her head, gasping, “Put me down,” and scrambled out of his arms to release the entire contents of her stomach upon the ground. Calloused hands brushed her neck as they came up to hold her long, thick curls out of her face while she retched, and when she was finally finished, she sat back against a flat, firm stomach. She chanced a hesitant look back and found keen blue eyes staring into her own with barely banked fury.

Of course it was Fili who had held her hair as she vomited. Of course. Not only had he been there to witness her failure in her first attempt at burglary, he was also right behind her as she embarrassed herself after the fact.

“How badly are you injured?” he asked.

She swallowed and then grimaced at the taste of her sickness still in her mouth. “I don’t know.”

“Has your stomach settled?”

After pausing to assess her nausea, Bilbo told him, “I believe so.” She would have nodded, but her head still swam and it pounded profusely. “What happened to the third troll?”

Fili’s face grew darker still. “I jumped on its back and drove my sword up into the base of the foul creature’s scull.” When her eyes widened, he explained curtly, “I was angry.” Yes. Yes, she could see that. He picked her up carefully, holding her closer than Bilbo thought was truly necessary.

Bilbo scowled. “Put me down, Fili. I’m not some damsel in distress.”

This brought a small quirk to his lips. “Are you not? That is not how it looked to me when I found you earlier.” He frowned again. “Never do something like that again,” he breathed. “You scared the life out of me. For the part I played in the matter, I am supremely sorry, but you should never have gone off to face the trolls alone.”

She frowned back at him. “There is a dragon at the end of this journey,” she reminded him. “What are three trolls when compared to Smaug?”

His lips tightened. “That does not mean you should risk your life needlessly before we ever reach the mountain. Does your beau truly mean so much to you, that you would seek the treasure of a troll horde and a fourteenth of what is in Erebor, with no thought for your safety?”

“I – I wasn’t even thinking of Dougal when I ran off,” Bilbo admitted, shocked at herself. “I was just so angry that I took off without thinking anything at all, really. I just wanted to prove you wrong.” She had been so foolish, and so, so selfish. What if she had died? What would the Company have done without their burglar? What would Dougal do without her? And Asphodel. Her dear friend would miss her terribly.

As they reached the camp and Fili laid her gently upon her bedroll, he stared at her in dismayed disbelief. Then he closed his eyes and shook his head. “Never again,” he reaffirmed. “I promise to goad you no longer about your personal quest if you promise to at least attempt to survive the Company’s.”

“Truly?” He had taken every opportunity up until now to deride her beau and her decision to “throw her life away” for his sake. It would be a welcome reprieve if he would hold his peace on the matter.

“Truly. You have my word.”

“Then you have mine, as well.” She thought for a moment, and then asked hesitantly, “Fili?”

“Yes, Miss Baggins?”

“Those things you did tonight, with your blades. Will you teach me? I did not like feeling so helpless.” It might not be respectable for a hobbit lass to learn such things, but no one in the Shire need ever know.

“It would be my honor.”

From then on, she and Fili began to become friends. He shielded her from Thorin’s ire at having gotten herself captured and putting the rest of the Company at risk, which firmly cemented Thorin’s rather poor opinion of her, in spite of her previous efforts to prove herself far more than what Thorin believed her to be, and after she had recovered sufficiently from the rough handling of the trolls, Fili taught her how to throw knives and wield the little elvish sword Gandalf presented her from the troll cave. As a reward for her increasing skills, Fili presented her with several throwing knives he had found in the troll horde, also of elvish make, and taught her how best to place the sheaths in order to conceal them on her body. The Crown Prince in Exile protected her ferociously when the orc raiding party attacked, and put his arm around her when the elves arrived, keeping her close.

When Arwen, Lord Elrond’s daughter came to abscond with her before dinner, Fili almost followed after them.

“Peace, Prince Fili,” Arwen laughed gaily. “I am only drawing your hobbit away for a bath. I imagine she will thank you not to keep her from washing away the dirt and soreness of the road.”

“I will, indeed,” Bilbo agreed gratefully. Never had she felt more disgusting in her life. “Thank you, my lady.”

“Please, Bilbo, if we are to be friends, you must call me Arwen.”

“Arwen, then,” Bilbo beamed up at her, delighted to have the chance to become friends with such a sweet young lady – young in the years of her people, at least – who clearly had her priorities in order if she went about offering bedraggled lasses baths any time they entered her home, and took the hand Arwen offered.

She and Arwen got to know one another whilst Bilbo scrubbed herself clean and worked all of the oil and grime out of her hair and then wallowed in the lavender scented hot water. At one point, Arwen asked, “And how long have you known the Crown Prince in Exile?”

Bilbo’s brow furrowed. “The same length of time as I have known the rest of the Company. Why do you ask?”

Blinking in surprise, Arwen replied, “Oh. I thought that the Took women only went on adventures to propose to their beloveds if they had not received a proposal for – excuse me – rather an unacceptable length of time.”

“Well, yes. That is partly why I have come on this quest. Did my mother tell you of that particular tradition?” Her mother had been quite well traveled, once upon a time, before Bungo Baggins built Bag End and set out to sweep her off of her wandering feet, so that she would stop leaving him behind. Oftentimes, her feet had led her to Rivendell, to visit the House of Elrond.

Arwen smiled in fond remembrance. “Indeed, she did. I think it is a lovely idea. Perhaps one day I shall adopt it and make it one of my people’s practices as well. Sometimes the ones we love simply need a little encouragement.”

“Encouragement,” Bilbo mused, tilting her head back against the side of the tub. She had never heard any of her Took relatives describe it as such, but that was exactly right. “Yes, that is what my Dougal needs.”

A little crease formed between Arwen’s eyebrows and then it smoothed out as she appeared to divine something unknown to Bilbo. “Tell me about your beloved.”

Away from the ironical attitude Fili always assumed whenever the subject of Dougal arose, try as her friend might these days to suppress it, Bilbo was at last able to describe her hobbit lad. “Dougal is dependable and kind and very sensible. He always keeps his word, and he works hard to help out with the family business. He treats all of the lasses in his family like treasures, and that is how you truly know the measure of a hobbit lad.”

With a slightly mischievous look in her eye, Arwen said, “All of that sounds wonderful, Bilbo, but what does he look like? Does he make your heart ache? Does he make you feel dizzy or faint or short of breath, or even slightly mad? How does he make you feel?”

Bilbo eyed her new friend askance. “You do realize those almost all sound like symptoms of a heart attack?”

Arwen smiled the sort of smile that probably broke hearts every day, though from what Bilbo could tell, Arwen would never intend to do so. “My dear Bilbo. Is that not what being in love is?”

For the rest of her bath, Bilbo was rather quiet, listening only halfway to what Arwen was saying. Her new friend had given Bilbo quite a lot to think about. Had she ever felt any of the symptoms Arwen had described? Certainly, as a younger hobbit, Dougal had made Bilbo feel a bit flushed and weak-kneed a time or two, especially if it was in the middle of summer and he developed a fine sheen of sweat from the heat. Yet those responses seemed to have all but ceased as time went by. Bilbo had not noticed much, and the rare times that she thought about it, she simply dismissed the change as a result of her increasing maturity. She could not stay a young hobbit lass whose head was turned by every handsome lad forever, after all. Yet Dougal was not every handsome lad. He was her hobbit lad, her beloved.

Wasn’t he?

In her abstraction, Bilbo hardly noticed what Arwen was doing with her person once she emerged from her bath and placidly allowed Arwen to glide around her in a soft rustle of skirts. By the time Arwen was finished, she turned Bilbo to face an ornately decorated mirror, and Bilbo’s eyebrows shot up her forehead.

She vaguely remembered Arwen putting some sort of oil in her hair which brought Bilbo’s normally rather frizzy curls under control, so that they were smoother and shinier. To hold the riotous deep auburn curls back, Arwen had placed a lightweight silver circlet in her hair, decorated with the thinnest, tiniest golden, silver, and bronze leaves. It was so delicate that Bilbo barely felt the weight of it upon her ears and brow, and Bilbo had the sneaking suspicion that it had once been worn by a tiny eleven lass many, many years ago. Her dress was a gauzy, rich dusty rose with gold, silver, and bronze accents, that made Bilbo’s olive-toned skin glow. A light balm Arwen had brushed over her lips concealed the dryness from life on the road and made them seem ever so slightly fuller.

The overall effect made Bilbo look almost a decade younger, and Bilbo hardly dared believe that the figure in the mirror was she.

She thanked Arwen almost in a daze, and followed her down to the dining hall.

Fili saw them approaching and hastened out of his seat to join them, only to stutter to a halt a few paces away and stare, his bright blue eyes wide as they took Bilbo in. For the first time since he first stood in her doorway, Fili executed a bow, and then he offered her his arm. She took it with a bemused smile and allowed him to lead her to the table. “You look lovely,” he murmured lowly, leaning down a little to speak directly into her ear.

The feeling of his hot breath against the tip of her ear sent a spike of heat through Bilbo that she had not felt since the early days of her courtship with Dougal, and she knew her cheeks must have become molten red. “Thank you. You look – cleaner,” she decided, studying the spare outfit he must have changed into after having a bit of a wash and tidying up his thick hair, which had gotten rather unruly in their flight from the orcs.

Fili huffed a laugh as he helped her into a chair and pushed it up to the table. “I’ll take that.”

Bilbo sighed and rolled her eyes, “Cut me some small amount of slack, Fili. It has been a very trying day.”

“You’ll hear no arguments from me,” he agreed easily, eying the elves seated about the table.

She elbowed him lightly and hissed at him to behave. “If you or any of the others do anything to strain my new friendship with Lady Arwen, I shall put nettles in your bedrolls when you least expect it.”

“Ah,” he sighed happily, a cocky grin sliding onto his face. “There’s my fiery hobbit lass. I’d thought perhaps the Lady Arwen had spirited her away and replaced her with someone else.”

This time, the elbow she jabbed into his side was decidedly less gentle, yet all he did was grin even more.

He must have managed to communicate Bilbo’s threat to the rest of the Company, however, as they all behaved extraordinarily well, for a group of travel-weary dwarves. Dear little Ori even suffered through the leafy greens on his plate without voicing any complaints. Bilbo could have kissed the lad, though she refrained, as it would not be very respectable behavior for a courting hobbit lass.

* * *

Finding out about the gold sickness that ran in the line of Durin explained much to Bilbo about what befell the dwarves of Erebor. She surmised that Thror, in his madness, had neglected and doomed his people through his tireless pursuit of more gold, and when the dragon came, his people stood no chance against the beast, because their king was not fit to lead them against any threat, let alone that of a fire drake.

Even as she and the dwarves snuck out of Rivendell and fought their way through the mountain pass, Bilbo mused on the gold sickness. What would it mean for her dwarves? Most of them, she had learned during the course of their journey, were of the line of Durin, and so most of them could potentially be susceptible.

Could Bilbo do anything to prevent it? She did not see how.

Her absorption nearly cost her everything, as the wild storm that raged threatened to toss her from the side of the mountain. Then, of course, the foul thing moved, and Bilbo discovered that the legends of the stone giants were not legends at all.

As the giants strove against each other, she and Kili were separated from Fili, and they almost tumbled off the edge. It was Thorin who saved them, and Thorin who blistered her ears for nearly getting his youngest nephew killed, all while Fili examined his brother from head to toe.

When Fili was as assured as he could be that Kili was in one piece, he strode towards where Thorin still continued to rail at Bilbo for her carelessness and wrapped his arm about her, telling his uncle, “Enough, Uncle Thorin. Do you not think that nearly dying is punishment enough for whatever crimes you believe Bilbo might have committed?” He looked down at her, studying her every bit as intently as he had studied his brother. “I thought I had lost you both.”

“She has been lost since she stepped foot outside her door,” Thorin said scornfully. “She should never have come with us. All she cares about is finding something that might induce that hobbit of hers to accept her suit.”

That was not true! Bilbo cared a great deal about the plight of the dwarves. The longer she knew them – yes, even Thorin – the more she wanted to help them take back their home, and the less she worried about her proposal. She had done more than enough to outshine every other Took lass who had set out on such a quest before her, and if all else failed, she had the little stash where the trolls had been slain. That part of her quest was finished. Now she was entirely dedicated to her task in retaking Erebor.

Fili tightened his arm about her and said again, “Enough.” He led her away toward where he and Kili were to sleep for the night, and Bilbo laid out her bedroll in silence.

She could not sleep that night, and so she sat up and took out her elvish blade and the whetstone Arwen had gifted her during the Company’s stay in Rivendell. It was for this reason that Bilbo knew the moment the enemy drew near. She cried out in alarm, waking the others, but they were hopelessly outnumbered.

Somehow, in the melee, Bilbo found herself falling away from everything, Fili’s horrified gaze catching on her own as she went down.

Thankfully, she had a softer landing than she expected. Softer, not soft, as falling from such a height could never have ended easily. To be sure, she had not expected to ever wake after she struck the bottom. Yet wake she did, and as she fumbled around in the dark, trying to get her bearings, her fingers encountered something small and smooth. She picked it up curiously and ran her thumb over it.

Hah! Imagine that. Somehow, she had stumbled upon a little ring. She stuffed it in her pocket shortly before she registered a strange and rather horrible voice in her ears. She would not call what the creature was doing singing. That would be an insult to bards and songstresses everywhere. Even her fauntling cousins could do better.

Yet perhaps the owner of the croaking voice could direct her out of the depths of the cave under the mountain, and so she ventured forth, only to draw back when she managed to make out the appearance of the figure in the gloom. It was ghastly – gangly and misshapen, the biggest things about it were its head and feet. Its eyes were large and bulbous in its round head, and it hardly had a nose to speak of. A few scraps of – something – preserved the last shreds of its modesty, should it have had any to begin with. It was smashing something which looked suspiciously like the body of a goblin with a stone, and she shuddered. Glad as she was to not have to face that goblin, she would not have wished this fate even upon one of its kind. The fell creature was going on about _eating it_.

Bilbo did not wish to speak with this creature. Not even a little bit. Yet she wished to remain trapped down here, separated from her dwarves, even less, and so she called out to it and found herself embroiled in the most high-stakes game of riddles of her life.

She could not believe it when she stumped the creature with such a simple question: “What do I have in my pocket?” She had cheated abominably, but she felt such tactics were allowed when the cost of losing was being eaten whole by the loathsome being she now called Gollum in her head, after the disturbing noise that often clawed its way out of his throat.

She could believe it even less when she realized that Gollum could not see her, though he was right in front of her. She could only conclude that it was because of the ring, though she could not remember having slipped it onto her finger in the first place. Not one to waste her good fortune, she bolted past him and then did not stop until she reached the open air.

Hateful and pitiable though he was, she still had him to thank for getting out of the caves, and once she was free, she did not look back.

Her sensitive ears picked out the sounds of running feet before her dwarves raced past her, and she hurried to catch up with them, slipping the ring off and into her pocket once more. “Fili! Kili! Bofur!” she called, or tried to, at least. Her voice was too hoarse to carry after what must have been hours without water, and so she had to keep running after them.

When she was almost upon them, she heard Thorin saying that she must have headed back home. She strode the rest of the way to them and thumped him on the chest. “I most assuredly have not,” she told him as he stared down at her in shock. “I signed a contract, Thorin Oakenshield, which means I gave you my word. And a Baggins never goes back on her word.”

He seemed to soften, and opened his mouth to say something in return – something suitably apologetic, she hoped – when they heard the howls of wargs, and he huffed in exasperation.

They took off running, and would have continued running if they had not been so thoroughly thwarted by the terrain.

Kili tossed her unceremoniously up into a tree and then joined her, followed shortly by his brother, and though Bilbo privately thought introducing fire into the mix when their safety depended upon their ability to remain up in the very flammable branches was foolish in the extreme, she gamely harried the orcs and wargs with pinecones, putting the top notch aim of her people to good use.

She could have run Thorin through herself when he allowed that white monstrosity, Azog, who was supposed to be considerably more _dead_ than he apparently was, to taunt him into leaping down to face him, but as he fell, she flashed back to the moment of softness earlier, and she scolded herself even as she threw body down to stand between him and his enemies.

Even before her feet hit the ground, no, even before her feet left the _branch_, she knew she was going to lose, and quite likely to die, risking her life for a dwarf whose only saving graces were his wonderful nephews, and the loyalty all of his Company showed him.

Well, she supposed that was slightly ungenerous. He had other redeeming qualities; he simply chose not to show them whenever he knew she was about.

Yet here she was, fighting for both of their lives against the largest, foulest orc she had ever had the misfortune to meet. Her fight against Azog – if a fight it could be called – seemed to her to last forever, but she knew there was no way that it had lasted more than mere seconds before the rest of the Company swooped down to her aid.

When the eagles came, she was too sore and out of it to feel properly appreciative of the fact that she would not be dying this day, though she imagined she would be joyful enough about it come morning.

She almost kissed the ground when the eagle carrying her set her down upon the Carrock, but she settled for throwing herself at the nearest dwarf and wrapping her arms about him. It was Bifur, as it turned out, and he bore her abrupt display of affection with good grace, patting her back gently and murmuring something she thought might have been intended to soothe in Khudzul. She squeezed him a little, careful not to do it too hard in case he had any injuries, and proceeded to hug the rest of the Company. She even hugged Dwalin, who accepted the gesture with a long-suffering air, and then she heard Thorin gasp and turned to watch as he sat up.

He called for her – well, he called for “the halfling,” which was quite rude, actually – and Gandalf assured him that she was well. She stepped toward him hesitantly, and he began speaking rapidly, in a way that rather made her think he was digging himself into another hole, and then he said something that shocked her utterly. He admitted that he was wrong.

She blinked up at him, finding herself subjected to the same sort of treatment she had given the rest of the dwarves. Patting him on the chest, she told him, “It’s alright to be wrong about hobbits, Thorin. You bigger folk never do seem to understand the things that are not directly within your line of sight.”

Before he could get huffy with her, Bilbo continued, “Thank you for saving me, back at the mountain pass. I believe this makes us even – and perhaps,” she added slowly, “even friends.”

He studied her, the flash of ire in his eyes gone as swiftly as it appeared at her words. “I do believe it does, Miss Baggins.”

“Bilbo,” she corrected gently.

Tipping his head, he agreed. “Bilbo.”

“Uncle,” Fili called, and she and Thorin turned to look his way. “Look,” he instructed, gazing off toward something into the distance, something naked and starved in his fair face.

Thorin released her, and they stepped toward the edge of the Carrock, staring at the lone peak that seemed a world away. “Erebor,” Thorin breathed, his voice full of yearning and awe. “We’re almost home.”

Well, not quite “almost,” but for once, where Thorin was concerned, Bilbo managed to hold her tongue. She would not wish to spoil their hard-won friendship just after it began to form, after all. Instead, she gazed upon the far-away peak and wondered that she did not experience the same hunger for home as the dwarves all about her. Oh, certainly, she missed her books and Asphodel and her garden – and Dougal! Of course she missed Dougal, she reminded herself, and shook off the strange notion that the thought did not quite ring true. Half of the reason she was on this quest was to win his hand at last. She was simply caught up in all of Arwen’s questions. Questions she had never quite dared to examine too closely before meeting her incandescent friend.

Remembering what her wooly-headedness had nearly cost her, as well as Kili and all of his kin, in the mountain pass, Bilbo shook her head firmly to dislodge the counterproductive mental meanderings and focused on the most pressing issue: How in Yavanna’s name were they going to get down off of this great rock the eagles had plopped them down upon?

It was slow-going, and there was much complaining from nearly every quarter throughout the process. The only one who seemed content with his lot was Gandalf, and Bilbo could not be sure if that was because Gandalf truly did not feel that anything about their current situation was amiss, or if he simply did not wish to admit that his feathered friends were far less helpful than they could have been.

Manwë’s eagles or not, they could have at least set the Company down somewhere nearer to their goal. She voiced this thought to Fili under her breath and yet somehow, Gandalf’s old ears managed to catch her at it.

“It is a very great thing that they were willing to rescue us at all, Bilbo Baggins, and were I you, I would cease my grumbling and instead be thankful to be alive.”

She and Fili exchanged an eloquently unimpressed glance and then soldiered on.

* * *

The house of the skin changer was quite a bit more than Bilbo was prepared to handle after the sennight she’d endured. She supposed after being rescued by the eagles of Manwë and knowing that a canny fire drake awaited her at the end of her journey, sheep and dogs which acted much like the dutiful children Beorn claimed them to be should not have been so disconcerting, yet she found herself quite unsettled by the entire thing.

Still more unsettling – for the dwarves, at least – was how much Beorn delighted in her company and treated her like a favored pet. She felt certain Fili and Kili would cause an incident at any moment if their host did not cease bestowing his singular attention upon her. Thorin, from whom the lads often took their cue, was similarly incensed, and Bilbo despaired of the entire Durin line. What did it matter if Beorn called her “Little Bunny,” so long as they were all safe, warm, and fed, and had a place to rest their heads tonight?

She should have known there was some mischief afoot when Gandalf was so cagey about what manner of friend he hoped would house them, and particularly when Beorn quite frankly stated that he did not know of Gandalf at all. At the time, however, she had been too relieved at the chance to stop and rest somewhere that was not the cold, hard ground, that she had not raised a single concern or protest when he bade her to trot off to an unknown skinchanger’s dwelling. Beorn had taken one look at her, scooped her up, and not relinquished her in all the time since. She was eating dinner from her new spot sitting upon his shoulder, and simply avoiding looking down, or else all the bread and honey would be for naught, as it would wind up painting the table and everything around her when she lost control over her stomach.

Beorn called her “Little Bunny” again, and Bilbo saw a vein in Fili’s forehead twitch. Then she thought back over what Beorn had asked her: “So, what brings you on this quest and so far from your den, Little Bunny?”

“Why, I’m their burglar, Master Beorn. I would not go so far as to say the quest could not succeed without me, but I do hope that my being here will make the chance for success somewhat greater than it would be otherwise.”

“And,” Bofur added helpfully, “she’s following a time-honored family tradition, trying to win the heart of a hobbit lad back home.”

She glanced at her friend with a startled blink. “Yes, of course. I am also here so that I might return home and propose to Dougal Underhill, the hobbit I have been courting for some time now.”

“And is he a very timid hobbit, then, this Dougal Underhill?” Beorn asked.

“Timid?” Bilbo repeated blankly. “Well, no. Not for a hobbit, at least. You will never find Dougal wielding a sword or facing a dragon, but for a hobbit he is very staid indeed.”

Beorn studied her for a time and then said, “I wonder, then, Little Bunny, why he has yet to ask for your hand himself. Were I a hobbit blessed enough by the Valar to have your affection as this Dougal Underhill must, I would do all in my power to ensure that you were mine.”

“Oh,” she said, her voice wavering a little as she took that in. No one had ever said such a thing to her before. She had come to expect that no one ever would. Eventually, she found her voice again, and told him as much.

“Then I am sorry, Little Bunny,” Beorn replied solemnly, “but your hobbit lad is a fool, and does not deserve you. If you are willing to take on a dragon for a group of dwarves who are no kin to you, and to whom you owe nothing, then your heart is far too great for one such as he.”

Bilbo did not burst into tears then, but oh, how she wanted to! She settled for patting Beorn’s shoulder with an unsteady hand and then thanking him before stuffing her mouth full of more fluffy, honey-laden bread so that she could have a valid excuse for saying no more.

That night, she stayed up and shared a smoke with Fili as they sat before the fire in the large heart. This time was far more companionable than the one they passed outside her smial all those months ago. She was grateful to have had a packet of Old Toby and her pipe stashed in one of her coat pockets when she lost her pack in the Misty Mountains, as the weed settled her nerves.

“He’s right, you know,” Fili murmured around the lip of his pipe. “Beorn, I mean.”

“Is he?” she wondered softly. “You could not find a more respectable hobbit than Dougal Underhill in all the Shire. And what am I, strange, adventurous Bilbo Baggins, daughter of Belladonna, in the face of that?”

Fili huffed. “The more I hear you say that word, the more I’m convinced your people have no understanding of its meaning.”

“Hmm,” she sighed, blowing another ring of smoke and resting her head upon his shoulder. “Perhaps you are right.”

"Excuse me? May I have that in writing?"

Bilbo murmured a drowsy yet humored, "No."

Fili let out a mock sigh. "I thought as much."

* * *

Bilbo took one look at the sickened forest and gave serious contemplation to calling the entire thing off, or simply ordering Gandalf to call his extremely superior eagle friends to come and fly them over the woodland realm before he left them to their own devices, the dignity of Manwë’s bloody birds be hanged. This forest stank of rot and evil, and she wanted no part of it. She turned and gazed forlornly after the ponies Beorn had generously allowed them to ride all the way to the edge of Mirkwood and then sighed, hitching the pack full of supplies Beorn had gifted her up higher on her back.

“Come on, then,” she said with a fatalistic air. “Let’s go stumble around in the big, dark forest.”

And stumble around they did. They stuck to the path as well as they could, but it was rough going in the deep, foreboding gloom, and Bilbo spent more than one night with tears running silently down her cheeks because she hungered for the sun and truly green, growing things. This forest was a mockery of everything that hobbits held dear, and Bilbo felt ill with it.

Eventually, they came upon a river, and were at quite a loss as to how they were meant to get across until Kili, who had the keenest eyes amongst the Company, spied a boat on the opposite bank.

Fili got to be the hero of the hour, not that any of them were in a celebratory mood, when he tied a knife at the end of a rope and used it to catch on the side of the boat and haul it to their side of the river.

Everything would have been fine, Bilbo’s natural hobbity inclinations against anything to do with deep bodies of water aside, if a hart had not startled everyone when they were bringing the last load of passengers onto the opposite bank, sending poor Bombur into the water.

The less said about their frayed tempers and low spirits whilst they trekked through the darkest parts of Mirkwood with Bombur borne between them, the better, in Bilbo’s humble opinion.

Finally, Bombur awoke, and yet it was no comfort to have her gentle friend back amongst the conscious, as all he could talk about was food, and specifically _her food_, which he distinctly remembered enjoying at her table, without remembering anything else past that night so long ago.

In an effort to get away from all the ill feelings amongst the Company, and to get their bearings, Bilbo eventually scurried up a tree. She soaked up the sunshine and free air like the driest sponge, and perhaps spent a little too long while doing so, as when she finally made her way back down, all of her friends were gone.

Furious, because she had not come all this way through this cursed forest with such moody dwarves only to lose them the moment her back was turned, she slipped on her little trinket from the goblin caves and followed the foul eight-legged beasts who had taken them. She took the opportunity to vent weeks of pent-up despair and frustration taunting the spiders and blinding and gutting the lot and felt a little concerned after about how bloodthirsty she’d become. The spiders cried out about the sting of her little elvish sword, and Bilbo glanced down at the blade happily. “Oh, you sting them, do you? Then Sting you shall be.” Then she finished off the spiders and shook off her battle haze, beginning to release her dwarves as quickly as possible, lest spiders from other parts of the forest come to discover that their brothers and sisters were quite viciously slain and choose to take exception to it.

Then, of course, they had to get caught by the elves because the dwarves had decided, once they shook off the stupor of the venom, to follow their stomachs instead of their brains.

She slipped on her tiny treasure again and followed after them, wondering how she had become responsible for saving thirteen dwarves from themselves. Oh, yes. That was right. She’d decided, in her infinite wisdom, that she needed to go on and Adventure.

* * *

As she spent days drifting about King Thranduil’s halls, she had half a mind to go back and give her past self a good smack. Those other Took lasses had done things like visit Bree or the Blue Mountains or the sites of historic battles and bring back a memento or two to lay at the feet of their lads. None of them, not a single, solitary one, had thrown in her lot with a pack of dwarves to face unknown dangers and then steal from under a dragon’s nose.

Perhaps she had spent too long denying her Tookish side, and it had reemerged at the slightest provocation with a vengeance. Perhaps she had simply been too lonely for too many years in her great smial with no one to share it with, and so spending an untold number of months in the company of people obligated to be there with her every waking and sleeping moment had seemed rather like a vacation.

Whatever had compelled her to take leave of her senses, she would greatly appreciate the chance to return to them and wake up from this life as a shrinking wraith in the bowls of the elvenking’s home, searching for her wayward dwarves.

She spent her nights curled up outside of Fili’s cell, holding his hands for that little bit of warmth and security while she tried to sleep. Initially, she had balked when Fili suggested it.

“Let me guess,” Fili had said when she objected. “The next few words that come out of your mouth will have something to do with that fact that sleeping in the presence of a lad to whom you are not married is not respectable.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “I was going to say that it would be improper, if you must know.”

“Ah, of course. Bearing in mind that you have spent many months now sleeping in the presence of an entire Company of dwarves, without a single chaperon to be found, and that we are currently separated by the bars of my cell, this is still clearly the most improper situation we have been in together. Forgive me. How could I have missed that earlier?”

She rolled her eyes at him – and at herself – and consented to stay. “Well, if I am going to ignore propriety anyway,” she said, reaching for his hands, “you might as well make yourself useful.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “At your service, milady,” he said sardonically.

“And don’t you forget it.”

When at last she found Thorin and their way out, she nearly wept. She stopped herself by remembering that she was about to be plenty wet enough without adding her own tears into the mix.

Her time in the river was no more pleasant than that of the dwarves, and perhaps even less so, as they at least were relatively safe inside the barrels, while she floundered about outside of Gloin’s, clinging on for dear life.

The arrival of the orcs was as unsurprising as it was unpleasant. Gloin did what he could to keep the orcs away from them both, and then the elves arrived. This was fortunate, as the Company lacked the weapons to defend themselves, but Kili was distracted at a rather critical moment by a leggy redheaded elleth Bilbo had seen about Thranduil’s halls, and he took an orc arrow through the arm for it.

Then they got away from the elves, Kili’s elleth included, and had to barter with a highly skeptical and suspicious man named Bard. Bilbo was tempted to tell the lad that if he continued to frown like that, his face would stay that way, but felt that it might be somewhat counterproductive.

At last, they arrived in a relatively warm, dry place, and Bilbo promptly sneezed all over herself and those unfortunate enough to find themselves standing too near. “Oh,” she gasped before sneezing again, those this time it was not quite as violent. “Do forgive me,” and then her eyes rolled back up into her head, and she fell into a pair of familiar arms.

* * *

When she woke next, she was propped up in a large bed piled high with many pillows, and Oin was staring at her reproachfully as he conducted an examination. “You’ve near-starved yourself and deprived yourself of far too much sleep, lass. Tis no wonder your fever spiked so high.”

“Well, I certainly did not do so intentionally, Master Oin,” Bilbo croaked, and promptly resolved to avoid speaking if at all possible. That fire in her throat was worse than getting flung about by trolls.

“Aye, true enough, but there’ll be none of that while we’re here, young lady, or I shall have Dori sit upon you.”

She sent him a betrayed look. She adored Dori, but after seeing how he fussed over his youngest brother, she could not imagine being the recipient of such fastidiousness. No, thank you. She would be the model patient.

“Kili?” she asked.

Oin’s face darkened, and Bilbo felt a stab of fear for her young friend. She wondered how Fili was handling it and then rolled her eyes at herself. She did not have to wonder. She well remembered how anxious Fili was in his cell, separated from his little brother and hanging onto her every word about how Kili was doing. Fili was almost certainly a mess.

She accepted the noxious tea Oin foisted upon her with a forced smile and whispered, “Tell Kili I’m thinking of him?”

Oin had to read her lips, but he nodded readily enough once he’d understood the message. Once Bilbo was alone, she worked at the foul excuse for tea and silently asked Yavanna why the members of this Company always seemed to court disaster.

Dozens of cups of that vile drink and days later, Bilbo recovered.

Kili didn’t.

Her heart broke when Thorin ordered Kili to stay behind, though she knew that a dragon-infested mountain was no place for the ailing lad.

Fili looked between her and his brother, clearly torn, and she made the decision for him. “Stay,” she mouthed. She knew that was what he truly wished to do anyway. His friendship with her meant a great deal to him, but Kili was the baby brother he had adored and protected since he was nothing more than a tiny, delicate pebble. There could be no question of Fili going anywhere else while Kili needed him, and they both knew it.

“Fili, this is your birthright,” Thorin argued. Bilbo could see that it hurt him to leave Kili behind, and doubly so to think of returning at last to the mountain without Fili, his beloved nephew and heir at his side, but as ever with Thorin, in moments of high emotion, he failed to express himself in a way that might induce others to listen. Oh, he could give quite the fiery speech when his heart was not involved, but bring that into the equation and words quite failed him. Someday, when all of this madness was over, she intended to make him work on it.

“Aye,” Fili agreed. “But Kili is my brother. And that means he comes before everything else.”

Thorin frowned. “Someday, sister-son, that will no longer be an option.”

“Today is not that day, Uncle.” He turned away from Thorin then and stepped toward Bilbo. “Be safe,” he whispered fiercely, before leaning down and pressing a kiss upon her upturned brow. Then he was gone, and Bilbo turned away to gaze upon the Lonely Mountain, knowing it was very possible she would never see Fili and Kili – or Bofur and Oin, apparently, she noted absently, ever again.

With their numbers thus reduced, they set course for Erebor, and if Bilbo felt as though she was leaving the better parts of her heart behind, she said nothing, and she steadfastly refused to examine the feeling.

Hours of searching for the keyhole later, Bilbo was ready to throw herself down from the side of the mountain. She would _roll _down the mountain and back to Fili and Kili if she had to. She ignored, of course, the fact that she could not swim. She would figure the details out later. This was fruitless. This was –

Wait.

Moonlight shone upon a notch that materialized in the face of the rock, and Bilbo called out to Thorin. And then she thoroughly regretted it, because Thorin thrust in the key and turned it, before heaving open the door, and at last they were there, at the end of the road. The Company’s road, at least. Hers was only now beginning.

She gazed around at the others who were still with her, opened her mouth to say something inspiring or funny or perhaps merely fitting enough to go in her epitaph, and then she stopped, because nothing came to mind. What did one say when preparing to be face to face with the last great fire drake of the North?

“I’ll be back in a little bit. Or, you know. I won’t.” Oh. That was what one said, then. Or at least that was what Bilbo said. Then she turned and made her way into the passageway, holding her breath. It seemed like the thing to do. She waited until she was a sufficient distance down the tunnel, and presumably out of the line of sight of the dwarves, and then slipped on her ring.

* * *

The treasury was massive. It easily could have fit Bag End inside several times over, and Bag End was no small smial. At first, she did not see Smaug, but she felt his heat and smelled his stench permeating the air about her. It was possible the most terrible thing about Smaug was his odor, although she had yet to see his teeth and claws, so it might still be outdone.

A little while later, she decided that the absolute worst thing about Smaug was, in fact, his ego. She had thought Fili was arrogant, all those months ago, but when compared to Smaug, Fili was positively _humble _and _insecure_.

She and Thorin knocked the smug look off of his face after goading him into impaling himself upon a nasty looking spear that was wedged into a wall in the treasury, the long tip of the spear fitting nicely in the exposed patch in Smaug’s chest. His pride simply could not suffer itself to be mocked, and so she and her dwarves had led Smaug about in a terrifying chase until Bilbo and Thorin at last taunted him into ending his own miserable life.

It started like this:

She and the others were running in a mad attempt to flee the range of Smaug’s fiery breath after Thorin had the brilliant idea to try to trap Smaug in molten gold failed spectacularly. Bilbo’s eye caught on a spear that must have been seven feet long, with a six inch spike at the end, and she put on a burst of speed, huffing out, “I have an idea that your nephews are going to kill me for. You interested?”

Thorin glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and then darted a look behind them. His eyes widened and he snagged a hold of her arm, jerking them both out of the way of being fricasseed. “I’m listening.”

“How badly do you think we can piss off a dragon?” He gave her a look, clearly pointing out the fire breathing menace at their heels. “Right. How would you like to use that sparkling personality of yours to provoke Smaug into a blind rage?”

When Thorin did not dismiss the idea out of hand, Bilbo knew she had won. And so the two of them led Smaug on a merry chase through different parts of the mountain, distracting him from their ultimate goal, hurling insults all the while.

At last, they returned to the site of the spear, and Thorin delivered a slur so beautifully offensive it should go down in the history books: ”YOU CALL YOURSELF A FIRE DRAKE, SMAUG THE PATHETIC? SMAUG THE INSIGNIFICANT? THE TRUE DRAGONS LAUGH AT YOU FROM THEIR GRAVES, WYRM. I HAVE SEEN _GARDEN SNAKES_ MORE FRIGHTENING THAN THE LIKES OF YOU. YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A FLEGLING PLAYING AT BEING A DRAGON,” and Smaug, who at this point was visibly frothing at the mouth, lunged with the intention of crushing Thorin beneath his feet – only to find that Thorin had leapt out of the way, and Smaug had become a new wall ornament for the treasury. The wyrm lived long enough to let out one final bellow of fury that shook nearly down to the foundations of the mountain, and then his body went lax and fell.

For a few moments, the Company simply stood in shocked silence and panted, trying to draw air into their starved lungs.

“We just slayed a dragon in the treasury,” Ori whispered, utterly floored.

“I do believe that’s giving ourselves far too much credit, Ori,” Bilbo reflected, her voice only slightly louder, fearing that anything more might disturb the impossible reality of the dead dragon before them, and bring him back to life. “In the end, Smaug did most of the work.”

“We just slayed a dragon in the _treasury_,” Ori repeated, as though he had not heard her. “However are we going to get it back out?”

She tilted her head to one side, studied the large, putrid corpse, gave the matter some intense thought, and then shrugged her weary shoulders. “Not my mountain, not my problem.”

Dwalin snorted and muttered something unflattering under his breath.

Then Thorin, who had been staring in wordless shock at the corpse of the beast who had stolen the majority of his life, finally turned away. “I do believe you are mad, Bilbo Baggins,” he said, his voice admiring.

“You’re the one who compared the last fire drake of the north to a garden snake and found him wanting, King Under the Mountain,” she retorted dryly. “If I am mad, it is likely a result of the company I keep.”

“King,” Gloin breathed, looking at his cousin wide-eyed. He took a knee and shouted, “Hail Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain!”

The others gathered followed suit, save for Bilbo, who chose to remain in her spot sitting atop a small pile of treasure and give her shaking legs and sore feet a rest. The cry went up a few times, “Hail Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain!” before they all rose and began clapping each other on the back and shaking hands, celebrating the end to a long, successful journey.

At last, the dwarves of Erebor were home.

* * *

Several days later, Bilbo looked back on that brief interlude after they felled Smaug and now, as they searched tirelessly for the Arkenstone – which, incidentally, was hidden deep within her pocket, as it had been since she’d nabbed it while having a rather threatening chat with Smaug; by which she meant that Smaug was doing the threatening, and Bilbo was doing quite a lot of fast-talking, trying to escape the treasury with her life intact – with fondness and longing. Thorin had taken a strange turn not long after their little celebration, and his mind was set on the Arkenstone, and that alone.

It was to the intrepid searching of the Company and the anxious observance of Bilbo that Fili, Kili, Bofur, and Oin arrived, and Bilbo took one look at Thorin’s nephews and grabbed them by their sleeves, dragging them away. First, she drew Kili into a hug, looking him over for any signs that he was not well enough to be up and about, and when she was satisfied, she told them, “You two need to get out of here. Scratch that. We ALL need to get out of here. There is something terribly wrong with your uncle.”

“What do you mean?” Kili asked. “We can’t leave! We just got here. What’s wrong with Uncle?”

She glanced at Fili desperately. “Please, you have to listen to me. He is not himself.”

“Just tell us what’s wrong,” Fili ordered her firmly, those his gaze was kind.

“He’s become obsessed with finding the Arkenstone. It’s all he thinks about, all he talks about. Yavanna’s sake, I don’t think I’ve even seen him eat anything in days, so I do not know how he is still on his feet-“

“Fili! Kili! Welcome to Erebor,” Thorin called, the strange light in his eyes still distressingly present. The small hope Bilbo had entertained that if she failed to warn the lads off, seeing them would shake Thorin out of whatever madness had overtaken him, died a rapid death. He drew nearer, and she glanced at Fili and Kili, noting the way their eyes widened slightly. “It is good that you have come, sister-sons. We must all work together to find the heart of the mountain.”

“Yes, of course,” Fili said, quickly concealing his shock and stepping forward to take his uncle’s arm. “Kili and I will spell you while you eat something, and then we can all look for the Arkenstone together.”

“I am not hungry, Fili. I cannot think of food until the Arkenstone has been found.”

Kili glanced at her in alarm and then pasted on a smile. “It will be easier for you to find the stone if you are strong, Uncle. You cannot find it if you have passed out.”

Thorin turned his head toward his youngest nephew slowly and then he nodded. “Yes. Yes, you are right. You will search while I eat?”

“Of course, Uncle,” Kili promised. They herded Thorin toward the area Bombur had set aside for meals, and pressed dried meat and cram and a little watered-down wine upon him, and once they were satisfied he would actually eat, they headed off to the treasury.

“That,” Kili said unsteadily, “is not our uncle.”

Bilbo looked at him in misery. “I’m afraid it is, Kili. For now, at least. It is my hope that Gandalf will be able to do something when he arrives.” She shook her head. “He told us not to enter the mountain without him. Perhaps this was why.”

“Well, we’re here now,” Fili sighed. “We’ll figure something out until the wizard comes.”

* * *

They did not figure something out. Instead, the elves of Mirkwood and the Men of Lake-town arrived at the mountain and sought portions of the treasure they believed were their due. When Thorin refused, negotiations went from tense to hostile, and then Dain’s men arrived. The elves and Men would not part to allow them through, which Bilbo found rather petty, and Thorin found galling.

In an effort to prevent needless bloodshed, Bilbo absconded with the Arkenstone, giving it to Bard, the one who had helped them enter Lake-town.

She should not have returned to the mountain after such a bold move, she reflected as she dangled from Thorin’s hand above the sharp and unforgiving rocks below. Fili cried out and yanked Thorin back, freeing Bilbo from his grasp. She fell to the floor and clutched at her abused throat, feeling as though his fingers were about it still. Taking a few deep breaths, she scrambled back as she listened to Thorin hurl vitriol at her feet and ban her from the mountain.

With one regretful look at Fili, who was still restraining his uncle, Bilbo retreated back down to the relative safety of the camp filled with Men and elves, and prayed that Gandalf would arrive and put an end to this folly.

Gandalf’s appearance brought no relief. Instead, he came bearing news of another army, and this one included orcs and goblins and other foul servants of the Enemy.

The battle that followed was full of senseless loss and utter chaos.

Bilbo watched Fili fall from a horrific height, and that was the end for her. She threw herself into the fighting, wearing her little ring. She had no goal other than to hurt the ones who had killed her friend.

When Thorin fell, she went to him, taking her ring off of her finger and sitting down beside him. Carefully, she cradled his head in her lap. He apologized and rescinded her banishment, and then he closed his eyes. Weeping, Bilbo set his head down and backed away slowly, glancing about at the wreck and ruin, and the countless lives spent upon the battlefield.

She shook her head, remembering a blond-haired figure falling and hitting the ground in a sickening smack, and then she slipped on her ring and fled. She went to the camp where the elves and Men had waited before the battle and nicked a pack and some supplies. Then she snuck into Erebor and lifted a little coin – just enough to fill her pockets, and hardly an amount that would be missed – to help cover the costs of her journey. Then she set out from the mountain and did not look back.

* * *

Months later, she arrived in Rivendell, bedraggled, sore, tired, and hungry. One of Lord Elrond’s sons found her and took her to his sister, who knelt down and drew Bilbo into her lithe arms, entirely disregarding the muck and sweat and dust from the road. “My dear Bilbo,” she cried softly. “Whatever has happened?”

Bilbo related the entire tale, beginning from when they departed Rivendell, and by the time she was finished, the water in the bath Arwen had sent an elleth to draw for her had gone cold, contrasting sharply with the hot tears dripping down her world-weary face.

Arwen, ever empathetic, held her hand and shed a few tears with her, and then she drew Bilbo out of the bath, enveloping her in a large towel every bit as soft as Bilbo remembered.

At Arwen’s gentle insistence, Bilbo remained in Rivendell for some weeks, and when she set off for the Shire at last, she was outfitted with new clothes, some jewelry Arwen gifted her from Arwen’s days as a small elleth and would not allow Bilbo to refuse, a pony, and plenty of provisions. Mindful of the trolls Bilbo and her Company had encountered on their journey toward her home, Arwen enlisted Elladan and Elrohir to accompany Bilbo back to the Shire. Bilbo and Arwen embraced at the gates, and Arwen entreated Bilbo to write often, and visit when she could.

“I promise,” Bilbo said, mustering a small smile. She had been doing that slightly more of late, as spending time with a friend had helped. When she had first arrived in Rivendell, Bilbo had felt as though she would never smile again. A part of her was still many miles away, in Erebor, and she would never be able to get it back.

Arwen pressed a soft hand to Bilbo’s cheek. “I do not believe this deep sadness is your true fate, mellon nin. One day, you will be happy again.”

“I hope you are right, my friend,” Bilbo replied, patting the hand on her cheek gently.

Leaning forward, Arwen placed a kiss upon her brow. “Be well, Bilbo, and may the grace of the Green Lady who made you shine upon you.”

“Thank you, Arwen. May Eru bless you and yours.”

With that, she and the twins departed from the Last Homely House and set forth for the Shire. As traveling companions, Arwen could not have chosen better. Elladan and Elrohir worked together to keep Bilbo safe and entertained, distracting her from her loss as much as possible. They raided the troll cave, the twins uncovering more elven artifacts and loading down Bilbo’s sweet pony with the chests the dwarves had buried, “for your beloved,” Elladan had remarked, causing Bilbo to jump slightly. She had not thought of her proposal to Dougal Underhill in what felt like a lifetime. Shaking her head, Bilbo had thanked them for their thoughtfulness.

She found as she reached the outskirts of the Shire that she would miss the two scamps, and she told them so. They smiled and declared that reason enough to drop in on her every now and then for tea, and Bilbo told them they would always be welcome. Then she bade them farewell and watched them turn and disappear down the way.

That last leg of the journey she put off until the morrow, choosing to camp out under the stars for one more night. By mid-morning, Bilbo wished that she had ignored the feelings of reluctance and trepidation which had convinced her the delay in her return was a fine idea. As she pulled up to Bag End with her pony and her treasure chests and her travel-worn, slim body which was not at all like a hobbit lass’s generously curvy form, Bilbo was astonished and dismayed to find her cousin Asphodel in shouting match with Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, who appeared to be behind the auction being held on Bilbo’s lawn, and consisting of all Bilbo’s possessions.

“What is the meaning of this?” Bilbo shouted, her hand laying instinctively on her little sword, Sting.

Lobelia eyed Bilbo askance, but Asphodel turned to her with wide, grateful eyes. “Bilbo! You’re home!” Del ran to Bilbo and threw her arms about her, frowning in concern at her small waist, and she whispered, “I’m so glad to have you back.”

Hugging her back, Bilbo murmured, “Thank you. It’s so good to see you again, Delly. I’ve missed you.” She squeezed her friend and then said, “Now what say you we send Lobelia packing?”

“I say that is the best idea I have heard in a very long time.”

* * *

Together, Bilbo and Asphodel put an end to the auction and extracted promises to return all of Bilbo’s currently absent items. As they worked, Asphodel informed her that Bilbo had been declared dead after she had been gone for a year, and Asphodel’s right to watch Bag End had been contested because as a decedent, Bilbo no longer had control over Bag End. This had all, naturally, been brought about by Lobelia, who had her squinty eyes on Bag End from the moment she first saw it. Her Uncle Bingo had, thankfully, maintained his position overseeing Bilbo’s duties as landlady, as Lobelia was not about to do anything that might be construed as _work_.

When all within Bag End had been set to rights, Bilbo and Asphodel sat down to tea, and she related her tale again, this time from the beginning. It was as she was winding down that a knock came at the door. Bilbo broke off from explaining what had befallen Thorin and then she rose from the small table in the kitchen where she and Asphodel sat. She noted with some surprise that it was nearly dark out, and she went to the door as a second round of knocking began.

She opened the door and stared. There, on her doorstep, was Dougal Underhill. “Hello, lass.”

“D-Dougal. Hello.” She gazed at him for several more moments and then shook herself, “Asphodel is visiting for tea, so we will not be unaccompanied. Won’t you come in?”

Dougal dipped his head and stepped inside – a rarity for him, as it was not often that he visited whilst Bilbo had other guests. “I came as soon as I heard you were back and I had a chance to get away from the sheep.”

“Oh,” she said lamely. If Dougal had expressed any similar urgency in seeing her before her journey, Bilbo would have been ecstatic. As it was, she did not feel much at all, aside from a vague wish that she could have the smial to herself and Asphodel once more, so that there was no need to try and act normal. Bilbo did not feel normal. She felt quite altered, and she saw no sense in trying to feign otherwise. Yet the tongues of those within the Shire waved long and often, and she looked upon the remaining years of her life here in Hobbiton as a constant source of gossip with a gimlet eye.

She would try to keep up appearances for as long as possible, she resolved. If her efforts came to naught, it would not be through lack of an attempt on her part.

“How are you, Dougal?”

“I am curious, Belladonna, as to what business could have kept you away from the Shire for more than a year.”

She felt irritation rise up within her. “Bilbo,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?” Dougal asked, thrown.

She closed her eyes, her hands balling up into fists at her sides. For so long, she had told herself that she enjoyed hearing him call her Belladonna, as though that was something special reserved for the two of them together, when in truth what she felt every time she heard it was irritation. So much for her efforts towards normalcy. “My name is Bilbo. It has been Bilbo since I was a faunt, and it will be Bilbo until I am low in my grave. Belladonna Baggins was my mother.”

“You have never told me to call you Bilbo before,” Dougal noted.

“In the last year, I have done many things for the first time,” she replied evenly. “Now I may add this one to the list.”

He eyed her strangely. “You have changed, Bella-“ He caught himself as her eyes flashed, and recovered. “Bilbo. Whatever have you done with my dear companion?”

She felt her brow furrow. “Your companion?” she repeated dully. “Is that all I ever was to you? Someone with whom you passed the time?”

Dougal frowned in confusion. “Well, yes, Be-Bilbo. What else would you be?”

Shaking her head slowly in disbelief, Bilbo asked herself, “How could I have been so blind?”

In all the years Bilbo had waited on him, never once had Dougal intended to be anything more than a friend to her, and clearly, he had expected her to wish the same. She had gone haring off into the wilds in search of something that would make her suit worthy in the eyes of her intended, when he had never been her intended in the first place, nor would he be so hereafter. What a fool she had been. What a silly, senseless fool. Standing there, in her entryway, Bilbo felt as though she had spent the past eleven years of her life clutching a nugget of gold desperately tight in her hand only to find, when at last she opened it, the nugget had crumbled into pyrite dust in her hand. Gold and fool’s gold, she mused. How like a dwarf she sounded.

Returning her gaze to his increasingly bewildered expression, Bilbo said, “My apologies. I do not believe I am in a fit state to receive any visitors other than Asphodel. Perhaps we might try again tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Dougal agreed slowly, his gaze wary. “Yes, I do believe that would be for the best.”

Bilbo saw him out and bid him farewell, and then she walked back to her best friend slowly. She had no idea what sort of expression was on her face, but it caused Asphodel to leap up out of her seat in alarm.

“Dear one! Are you well? You look far too pale. Come,” she said, walking over to take her by the arm and lead her over to sit at the table once more, “let me make a fresh pot of tea, as this one has long since gone cold, and perhaps you might tell me what has you white as a sheet, and then you can finish telling me about what happened to Oakenshield.”

“King Thorin,” Bilbo corrected absently as she studied the grains of wood in the table. “Though I suppose titles will not matter to him much now. He died with his head in my lap.”

Asphodel fumbled the kettle and then stopped, shaking her head at herself. “So, they all died, then? Those sons of Durin you set out to help?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Probably others of the Company died as well. My heart could not stand to stay long enough to find out who else was lost.”

“I do not blame you, dear one. I do not believe I would have had the heart to stay either, if I had lost so many in so short a time.” She sighed as the kettle began to whistle and lifted it off of the rack above the fire. “It’s all so much to take in. I cannot believe that one hobbit could live through so much. Though, of course, if anyone could do it, my dear Bilbo, it would be you.”

Bilbo shook her head. “Sometimes on the journey home I wondered if perhaps all of this might one day seem like little more than some fantastical dream. The sons of Durin are gone and I have not the strength to return to Erebor to see those who remain among the living. What if I start to forget? What if, in the end, none of what I did mattered at all?”

Asphodel pursed her lips. “That is the grief talking. What if none of it _mattered?_ The dwarves of Erebor have a home again, do they not? The dragon is dead because of a plan you made. You saved those dwarves from giant spiders and from those dungeons. Bilbo Baggins, everything you did on your quest mattered. And if you are truly worried that you might forget, dear one, then perhaps you should do what you have always done best.”

“What is that, Del?”

Her best friend looked at her with an encouraging smile. “_Write_. Write it all down and then share it with anyone willing to sit still long enough to hear the tale, so that people will remember your story long after you and I and the rest of the hobbits we know are gone, and so that your sons of Durin will live on forever.”

She stared at Asphodel, her mouth slightly open. Yes, of course. Why had that never occurred to her before? She would write their story and she would set their images upon the pages of the book so that the whole of Middle Earth would have a reminder of those who gave their lives to hold onto the last great home of the dwarves. She would immortalize Fili, Kili, and Thorin, and all of the rest with ink and paper. “Thank you,” she said fervently.

Del tilted her head. “You’re always welcome. You know that. Although I am curious about what you’re thanking me for.”

“For talking some sense into me. For looking after Bag End for more than a year. For being the very best friend a spinster hobbit could ever hope to ask for.”

She grinned warmly. “As I said: You are always welcome. Although, do mind who you are calling a spinster. I respond very poorly to people who abuse my friends, you know.”

For the first time in a long, long time, Bilbo laughed. “Yes,” she said, wondering at the slightly rusty sound that had come out of her mouth. She hadn't known she was still capable of that. “Yes, you do.”

* * *

Dougal returned to Bag End the next day, as he had said he would. Bilbo had expected nothing less. Dougal was, after all, a hobbit of his word.

She met him at her gate and told him, “I have given it a great deal of thought, Dougal, and I do believe that I will need some time before we may resume our vists. I lost several people while I was away, and I have something I must do before I will feel ready to do anything else.”

Dougal studied her carefully and then he nodded. “I am sorry for your loss,” he told her, as kind and staid as ever. “Please, take all the time you need. You know where to find me if you ever need me.”

“Thank you, Dougal. You are a good friend.”

He smiled at her and inclined his head slightly. “It’s kind of you to say so, Bilbo. Good day.”

Grinning at his use of her chosen name, Bilbo repeated the farewell fondly. “Good day to you, too.”

Then she turned back to Bag End, shut the door, rolled up her sleeves, and set to work, and for many months after, she thought of little else aside from the words and sketches that went into the red leather bound book chronicling her journey with thirteen dwarves and a wizard.

Sometimes the words flowed faster from her quill than they could even from Bofur’s lips. Sometimes entire days would pass without a single line falling from her head and onto the page. Those were the days when the pain of the memories outweighed the joy, and on days such as those, not even Del could draw her out of her melancholy, though she certainly still tried. It was on a day such as this that a firm knock came at the door, pulling Bilbo’s attention from where she sat staring at the fire in the hearth blankly.

She looked down at herself to verify that she had put on clothes decent enough for company that morning and not merely stayed in her dressing gown, as she was wont to do on the days when she did not need to see anyone in particular. A plain brown dress and dark green corset assured her that she was dressed suitably enough to avoid offending anyone’s delicate sensibilities. She had made the mistake of not changing before setting out to see to her tenants exactly once, and that had been more than enough to convince her to never make that mistake again.

She called out, “I’m coming,” and then muttered to herself distractedly all the way to the front door. She pulled it open and then froze, staring at the figure standing on her doorstep.

Bilbo began to tremble, and then she reached out a shaking hand to feel whiskery cheeks and a long nose. “How can this be?” she whispered, for she had touched a ghost.

“When you left without saying goodbye, I thought perhaps you were still angry over what happened at the gates.”

She shook her head, incomprehending. “You fell,” she breathed. “You fell and did not move again.”

“Aye, lass. I did not for a long, long time. It took near six months before I was fully healed. As soon as I had seen to my duties as Crown Prince, I told Uncle I was setting out for the Shire. Some of the others came with me, though Kili had to stay behind. We cannot both be gone from the mountain at the same time, you see.”

She keened softly. “Kili and Thorin also live?”

“Yes, Bilbo. I promise you, both are healthy and whole.” The ghost studied her carefully. “Do you need to sit down? You look quite pale.”

She let the ghost lead her to her favorite sitting chair and draw her down to sit in it. Then he knelt down at her feet. He took her hands in his own, and they felt as warm and strong and calloused as she remembered.

Maybe – maybe he was not a ghost after all? Maybe he did truly live?

He stared up at her, his eyes wide and full of hope for Bilbo knew not what. “I know I may be too late. That you might already have wed your hobbit beau. But I must ask, though you may not consider it very respectable –“

As sense began to return to her fully, and she realized it truly was Fili kneeling before her, Bilbo understood several things at once:

  1. She had never loved Dougal Underhill. Never had she felt a fraction of what her wild heart was capable of feeling in the presence of one she truly loved for her hobbit friend.
  2. She did not care one _whit_ about respectability, as defined by the denizens of the Shire.
  3. She could never go back to the hobbit lass she had been before going on an adventure with thirteen dwarves and a wizard.
  4. The few inches of space between Bilbo and Fili needed to be gone _immediately_.

All of which culminated in her burying her fingers in his long, thick hair and tugging sharply as she growled, “Respect this!” and pulled him into a searing kiss.

And they lived happily ever after, to the end of their days.

Well, except for that small matter of the One Ring which Bilbo spent many years carrying around in her pocket, but that is an entirely different story.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Sountrack Listing
> 
> The Ronettes - Be My Baby - Dougal's Business  
Nat King Cole - I Would Do (Anything For You) - Going on an Adventure  
The All-American Rejects - Gives You Hell - That Cocky Bastard  
Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You - The Company that Trolls Together Rolls Together  
The Veronicas - When It All Falls Apart - There Are Apparently Mountains High Enough  
Maroon 5 - Maps - Gonna Get Out of This Cave If It Kills Me  
Slaughter - Up All Night - Taking On A Monster Orc Was _Dumb_  
Toad The Wet Sprocket - I'll Bet on You - Can't Argue With A Bearman  
Orianthi - Highly Strung - So, Mirkwood Sucks  
Matchbox Twenty - How Far We've Come - Sure, I'd Love to Get Roasted  
Orianthi - Suffocated - The Great Battle Ballads Never Broke My Heart Like This  
Hey Monday - Run, Don't Walk - Well, It's About Bloody Time (Finale)


End file.
